AN­DRE WOR­RELL

JMMB In­vest­ments (T&T) CEO Ronald Carter says that giv­en the sub­dued eco­nom­ic en­vi­ron­ment like­ly to ob­tain in T&T in 2017, and a strength­en­ing glob­al econ­o­my, lo­cal in­vestors should look to in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets to bol­ster their in­vest­ments.

Carter was de­liv­er­ing the open­ing ad­dress at a sem­i­nar at the Court­yard Mar­riott host­ed by JMMB In­vest­ments fo­cused on glob­al in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties.

The event al­so show­cased the JMMB In­ter­ac­tive in­vest­ment plat­form, a part­ner­ship be­tween JMMB In­vest­ments and in­ter­na­tion­al bro­ker­age house In­ter­ac­tive Bro­kers, which al­lows lo­cal in­vestors ac­cess to a suite of bro­ker­age, trad­ing and wealth man­age­ment ser­vices across glob­al fi­nan­cial mar­kets.

Carter said: "While the T&T econ­o­my is ex­pect­ed to show a con­trac­tion in 2017, the World Bank fore­casts glob­al growth of 2.7 per cent ver­sus 2.3 per cent for 2016."

Carter added that for in­vestors with ac­cess to US cur­ren­cy to in­vest, now was as good a time as any to look to in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets.

"As we know, our do­mes­tic econ­o­my has been neg­a­tive­ly im­pact­ed by low hy­dro­car­bon prices and falling out­put. The re­sult­ing re­duced flows along with rel­a­tive­ly el­e­vat­ed lev­els of ex­pen­di­ture con­tin­ue to put pres­sure on our for­eign re­serves and ex­change rate. En­sur­ing that your US dol­lars are op­ti­mal­ly in­vest­ed is there­fore key," he said.

Carter stat­ed that for 2017, he ex­pect­ed an up­ward move­ment in do­mes­tic in­ter­est rates.

He said: "We ex­pect lo­cal TT in­ter­est rates to trend up­ward in 2017 as liq­uid­i­ty in the fi­nan­cial sys­tem has mod­er­at­ed and Gov­ern­ment of T&T is ex­pect­ed to is­sue new debt to fund the bud­get deficit."

Turn­ing his at­ten­tion to the in­ter­na­tion­al mar­ket, Carter said that though the poli­cies of the new Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion are still be­ing rolled out, the US econ­o­my is ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue on its growth path.

"The largest econ­o­my in the world (the US) grew an es­ti­mat­ed 1.6 per cent in 2016, with pro­jec­tions of con­tin­ued growth of 2.2 per cent in 2017. The eco­nom­ic poli­cies of the new US ad­min­is­tra­tion are still un­fold­ing, how­ev­er the con­sen­sus ex­pec­ta­tion is that there will be growth in gov­ern­ment spend­ing, tax cuts and a fo­cus on dereg­u­la­tion. All these fac­tors play in­to a strong eco­nom­ic out­look and high­er as­set prices." Carter said.

The JMMB ex­ec­u­tive point­ed out that with con­tin­ued eco­nom­ic growth in Chi­na and In­dia, the fastest grow­ing economies in the world, and with signs of re­cov­ery in the Eu­ro­zone, lo­cal in­vestors should give ac­tive con­sid­er­a­tion to mak­ing glob­al in­vest­ments.

He said: "In­vest­ing glob­al­ly there­fore gives in­vestors ac­cess not on­ly to a broad­er se­lec­tion of in­vest­ments but al­so the op­por­tu­ni­ty to earn high­er rates of re­turns than the lo­cal mar­ket pro­vides."